Mobile phone celebrates 40 years of world-changing growth

The mobile phone has celebrated its fortieth birthday, marking four decades since engineers at Motorola first demonstrated a working device, in the shape of the DynaTAC (pictured left).

As detailed in an in-depth feature of the first edition of the V3 Tablet Appand now available on the V3 website, the engineers at Motorola helped change the world with their ground-breaking work, all the while battling with AT&T for the honour.

Announcing the device, Motorola predicted big things for the product, claiming it would be in demand by a huge variety of people.

“We expect there’ll be heavy usage by a widely diverse group of people – businessmen, journalists, doctors, housewives, virtually anyone who needs or wants telephone communications in areas where conventional telephones are unavailable," it said.

They weren’t wrong, although it took a little time for the device to reach the stage where anyone could have one as the price, around $3,000 per device, was fairly prohibitive.

However since the late 1990s and the rise of Nokia with its endless supply of cheap, functional and easy-to-use devices, followed by Apple with its highly desired iPhone range, the phone has taken over the world.

Now, devices feature endless innovations coming thick and fast in the shape of internet browsing, built-in cameras and GPS capabilities and new eye-scrolling and gesture control tech on the way from the Samsung Galaxy S4.

What’s more society has been utterly changed, with workers now contactable at all times – for good or for ill – the ability to run apps ranging from fun and games to serious working applications across devices.

No doubt the next 40 years of innovation in the mobile space will prove just as exciting.

Dan Worth is the news editor for V3 having first joined the site as a reporter in November 2009. He specialises in a raft of areas including fixed and mobile telecoms, data protection, social media and government IT. Before joining V3 Dan covered communications technology, data handling and resilience in the emergency services sector on the BAPCO Journal.